


a kingdom for my sanity

by takakoyaki



Category: Boyfriend, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takakoyaki/pseuds/takakoyaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where the Jo twins are princes and Minwoo is their childhood "friend" and future royal advisor. Also, Donghyun is the troll king, Hyunseong is a hapless kitchen boy, Jeongmin is the world's most incompetent assassin, and almost everyone is varying levels of disastrous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a kingdom for my sanity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurooing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurooing/gifts).



> The idea for this AU totally belongs to [Zoe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kurooing). This one's for you, kid.

Without even looking up, Minwoo knew that Youngmin was attempting to ditch their daily history lessons. He rubbed his temples and sighed heavily.

“Don’t.”

Youngmin froze, one gangly leg already swung outside the castle window. Kwangmin, who had been doodling on his notes instead of reading, was clearly considering following him, but first he glanced nervously between his brother and Minwoo.

“But the tutor fell asleep again!” Youngmin whined and pointed accusingly at the snoring old man on the other side of the room, after the initial shock of being discovered (God knows why he was surprised at all, though) had worn off.

“That doesn’t mean you two can leave without finishing the reading.”

“No one will care,” Youngmin insisted. “I’m the _prince_. You’re just being difficult again.”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s difficult. What kind of prince can’t even finish one lousy assignment without complaining?” Minwoo snapped back.

At that precise moment, their elderly tutor decided to jolt awake. “Who’s lousy?!”

“Not me!” Kwangmin volunteered helpfully.

In the end, Youngmin reluctantly slinked back to his desk, Kwangmin continued doodling, and Minwoo just sighed and went back to his book.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been thrilled.

Due to the good fortune of being the son of the king’s chief advisor, he was basically guaranteed the position when his father’s run was over. Until then, he got to live a well-appointed life in the royal castle, getting the same royal education, eating the same fancy food, and living in the same fancy castle as the twin princes themselves.  Really, he was practically their equal (just with less of the spotlight).

Yes, he would have been thankful.

And really he was, for the food and the castle and everything else, but that was overshadowed by… all of this.

For example, when they were all in the banquet hall eating dinner that evening, the king and the royal advisor asked how the twins’ education had come along that day, Minwoo was about to answer entirely truthfully when Youngmin kicked him underneath the table.

“Lessons went fine, sir, thanks for asking,” Youngmin smiled charmingly, but he started coughing after Minwoo elbowed him hard in the ribs.

“Actually, both Their Royal Highnesses had difficulty concentrating again. I humbly suggest considering discipline if this continues. I’m concerned about the Crown Prince _especially_ ,” Minwoo said with confidence, pretending to pat Youngmin on the back as he coughed.

“Yes, I’ll consider it. And no, you can’t decide the punishment.” The king looked between the twins and Minwoo, his tone and his stare dry as usual. He was kind of a strange person even by kingly standards (thankfully not quite as strange as the twins) and preferred being called Donghyun by everyone mostly, but it was whatever.

“Really though Minwoo, since you’re so concerned about Youngmin, why don’t you give him some extra tutoring in your spare time? Consider it a royal decree,” Donghyun said with a shrug before going back to his food.

Minwoo’s jaw dropped. He could have sworn the king was smirking sarcastically as he ate. “Your Highness, that’s—“

“Whyyyyyyyy?! Why do I have to get stuck with this brat?! Kwangmin should have to come too, he was gonna skip!” Youngmin whined, cutting Minwoo off mid-protest. Again.

Minwoo was ready to strangle Youngmin in front of everyone when Kwangmin, who hadn’t said anything the whole time, pointed to himself confusedly.

“Me? Where are we going?” he asked in his trademark half-oblivious, half-sarcastic way, and Minwoo would have wanted to smash a plate over his head in frustration if he wasn’t so busy being furious with Youngmin and the king and humanity in general. But mostly Youngmin.

“Nowhere, clearly.” Minwoo sighed and shook his head.

“With your permission, I’d better leave early to prepare extra lessons for tomorrow,” he said abruptly, and left the dining hall without actually waiting for permission. If the king or his father punished him later, well, there was no way it would be worse than being stuck alone in a room with Youngmin.

\--

Youngmin never had a particularly good feeling whenever Donghyun called him and only him, the ‘slightly older twin and therefore Crown Prince I guess,’ to his royal office. However, he especially didn’t have a good feeling about this specific time.

The ominous feeling he had was proven correct when he flung open the door and Donghyun greeted him with one of his creepy smiles that meant absolutely nothing good ever.

“You’re turning eighteen soon, right? So, it’s probably time you thought about getting married!”

“What? How about no,” Youngmin made a face. “I’ll do it when I want, but not now.”

“Sure, whatever,” Donghyun said. “I’ll just send a letter back to all these princesses saying that Prince Youngmin can’t be bothered right now, I’m sure that will go over well.”

Youngmin fidgeted nervously as Donghyun stared at him. The king was going to find some way to make him look bad through all of this, it was inevitable.

“Ugh… well… I guess I could at least meet some of them. But I’m not marrying a stranger,” he insisted hotly.

“Alright, I’ll pick some names out of a hat and call them over then. Go play with matches or whatever you kids do these days,” Donghyun waved him away and went back to reading a book or whatever he’d been looking at before Youngmin arrived.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Youngmin rolled his eyes and headed for the door quickly as he could.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Donghyun was actually enjoying this. Well, he almost definitely was, considering the fact that Youngmin could’ve sworn he heard Donghyun actually cackling as he shut the door.

Nothing good was going to come of this. Absolutely nothing.

\--

Minwoo was experiencing a problem.

Strange things or just bad luck kept occurring to him wherever he went. He tried to concentrate on his studies, but instead he ended up spacing out and tearing up his parchment into tiny pieces before he came to his senses. He accidentally chewed at least three of his writing quills nearly in half. He almost fell into a pond when crossing through the courtyard. He walked into a closed door—twice.

“Am I turning into Kwangmin?”

He’d meant to ask himself, but he’d forgotten that he was in the castle kitchens visiting his friend(?) Hyunseong and therefore not actually by himself. In his defense Hyunseong hadn’t said anything for a while, and also it was kind of easy to forget he was there.

“He’s a little odd, but not quite that clumsy,” Hyunseong pointed out.

When Minwoo just glared at him, he attempted to change the subject.

“Anyway, did you hear? Youngmin might be getting engaged.”

This was apparently Hyunseong’s attempt at cheering him up or at least getting Minwoo to stop walking around in circles around the kitchen, which he didn’t realize he was doing until Hyunseong spoke up.

“Yes, the whole castle knows,” Minwoo said irritably.

Hyunseong didn’t seem to catch on, merely shrugging and stirring around a pot of soup or something. “Oh, right.”

“Right.”

In Minwoo’s opinion Hyunseong was mainly just a clueless kitchen boy, but he was unfortunately about the only person in the castle who was any good at listening to people complain. Minwoo sighed in resignation, going to sit down on a nearby bench and continue complaining. Instead he ended up slipping off and falling to the floor, knocking over a box of assorted vegetables in the process.

“God damn it all,” he muttered, righting himself and half-heartedly throwing some carrots back into the box.

“I thought you’d be happier about it, all things considered,” Hyunseong looked over his shoulder at Minwoo. “You probably won’t have to spend so much time with him once his fiancée gets here.”

Minwoo paused. Hyunseong had a point, he supposed, but that didn’t explain why he was so angry about it. He should be thankful that he would finally be able to pawn Youngmin off on someone else now.

“I think I was just in denial that he was going to be king eventually,” he said after a while. “And I’ll have to be his chief advisor. It doesn’t seem like a thing that should be happening. Yet.”

“I’m sure that’s the reason.” Hyunseong just smiled a little and casually went back to his cooking, as if he knew something Minwoo didn’t.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, I don’t approve of it,” Minwoo huffed, dusting off his hands as he threw the last of the spilled vegetables back into their crate. “I’m just having an off day or something.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Hyunseong’s reply was a little too good-natured even for him, but Minwoo didn’t feel like bothering with it anymore.  This was all Youngmin’s fault somehow, he knew it. He still had to go prepare a lesson plan for the twins, though. Or just Youngmin, really, but that was beside the point.

“I’m leaving,” he announced, before promptly walking into the door frame and knocking himself flat on his ass.

An off day, indeed.

\--

Having a private lesson with Minwoo didn’t really help Youngmin want to read. It just made it harder to escape, which was most likely Donghyun’s plan all along.

In any case, he’d rather think about anything besides politics or history or whatever Minwoo was talking about right now. Aside from getting married, anyway.

“I haven’t seen Jeongmin around lately,” he said idly, causing Minwoo to look at him incredulously.

“Do you _want_ to see him? He’s an assassin. He tries to kill you like at least once a month.”

“Well, he’s a really incompetent one. I don’t think anyone takes him seriously,” Youngmin said with a shrug. “But I bet if I paid him enough he’d pretend to kill me and all my problems would be solved.”

Minwoo narrowed his eyes. “As much as I’d like to get rid of you, staging a fake death is a stupid idea. The king would find out eventually.”

“I don’t see how you could stop me,” Youngmin threatened.

Minwoo looked like he was about to strangle him, but they were interrupted by a cheerful voice coming from the window.

“You guys were talking about me? I feel so loved.”

A man at least two heads shorter than Youngmin pulled himself through the window frame, looking pleased as punch. He was dressed in a normal looking servant’s outfit, but Youngmin knew he wasn’t actually a servant.

“Jeongmin? How long have you been there?” Youngmin jumped to his feet, more in surprise than in alarm.

“That’s… actually really creepy timing.” Minwoo merely turned to look at Jeongmin, making a sour face. “Should I call the guards?”

“No, wait! I came to warn you guys,” Jeongmin said quickly. It was a claim that was just weird enough for both Youngmin and Minwoo to pause and stare at him.

“I, uh, think some other guys followed me through my usual route to sneak into the castle. One of them tripped the alarm, but I don’t know if there are any others,” he explained, putting his hands up in defeat. “I really didn’t notice them until it was too late! Sorry!!”

“What?!” Youngmin and Minwoo exclaimed in unison. As if on cue, the voices of guards could be heard shouting down the hallway.

“You have to hide,” Jeongmin shooed them out of the room before either one of them could protest. “They might be disguised like me, so you can’t trust anyone!”

“Why should we trust _you_?!” Minwoo said through gritted teeth, though he grabbed Youngmin’s wrist and pulled him forcefully to the opposite direction of the commotion before Youngmin could do anything else.

“Because! I know where all the hidey holes in this place are. Plus, I can’t have anyone else killing you until I get a fair shot at it,” Jeongmin whined, and Youngmin couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“You know, I really don’t think you’re very good at your job,” he told Jeongmin, who just grinned at him as they hurried down a staircase towards the castle storerooms.

Jeongmin led them to the back corner and pushed aside a couple of crates to partially reveal a nondescript closet door that had been completely hidden in one of the smaller storerooms. The three of them hurriedly moved the rest of the crates aside and pried the door open.

“Get in there already!” Minwoo tried to shove Youngmin hurriedly into the closet, but in his haste he slipped on the stone floor and fell directly onto Youngmin.

“Shit!” Youngmin tried to grab onto something to stop both of them from falling inside, but in the end he ended up grabbing the door handle and slamming it so that both of them were stuck inside. He tried to open it again, but the rusty old hinges were stuck and wouldn’t budge without help.

Both Minwoo and Youngmin shouted at Jeongmin, who was already stacking crates to block the door. “Hey, don’t do that! We’re both stuck in here!”

“Just deal with it!” Jeongmin yelled back. “I’ll have to go find a crowbar or something and come get you when the coast is clear. Don’t make a sound unless you hear my voice, alright? And try not to kill each other.”

They were both about to protest again, but then the sound of Jeongmin’s footsteps disappeared out of the room. The crates were already stacked against the door; they would just have to wait until things calmed down enough for Jeongmin to come get them out, and who knew how long that would be.

“We’re trapped.” Minwoo stated the obvious.

“Looks like it.” Youngmin already felt like he had a headache.

The hidden closet was dusty and cold, full of cobwebs and moldy forgotten mops and what not, and worst of all it was cramped enough that his head was basically touching the ceiling. Not to mention he had scarcely several inches of room between himself and Minwoo.

He leaned back against the closet wall. Only a little bit of light filtered in through the cracks in the door, and he couldn’t see out of it. Which was a good thing, he reminded himself, considering that his life was probably actually in danger if they got discovered by the real assassins.

“Stay quiet in case anyone else comes down here,” Minwoo said under his breath.

“…Yeah.” Youngmin didn’t have the energy to tell Minwoo he was already planning on doing that, so both of them stayed quiet for what seemed like ages, but might have only been a few minutes in reality.

It was enough time for it to really sink in that someone dangerous wanted Youngmin dead. Probably a lot of someones did. Donghyun and Kwangmin were in danger too. What if something happened to them? When he got married, would people want his wife dead? And really, what if this was all just some big setup by Jeongmin to try and make them die a slow and painful death?

None of these worries compared even a little bit to the ice cold terror he felt when someone who was way too careful to be Jeongmin pushed open the door of the storeroom. There were only the faintest shuffling sounds as whoever it was checked around quietly.

An eternity passed before anything else happened. Youngmin held his breath. He couldn’t sense anything other than the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his chest.

“Not in here,” someone said in a low voice. “These crates are too small to hide people in ‘em, anyway.”

“Alright, move on,” came another voice. The door closed again.

For a long time, neither Minwoo nor Youngmin dared to exhale. Then, all at once, they both did.

Youngmin realized belatedly that Minwoo was glaring at him, his features looking even more… mouse-like in the dim light.

“What? You’re the one that fell and got us both stuck in here,” he muttered.

“You’re the one that grabbed the door handle of all things,” Minwoo snapped back.

“It was reflexes.” Youngmin slumped against the closet wall and sighed heavily.

“Well, at least I’m pretty sure I don’t want to actually die now. I guess I’ll just tell my dad I’ll get married.”

Minwoo raised an eyebrow at him. “You were actually thinking of dying? _That’s_ how scared of getting married you are?”

“So what if I am?” Youngmin sulked, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to have to marry someone I don’t really know, anyway.”

Minwoo pursed his lips. It was enough of a pause that Youngmin thought for a moment that he was considering not being an asshole.

“I don’t want you to get married either,” Minwoo said finally. Youngmin’s eyes widened.

“I’d feel sorry for the bride,” he added quickly. “There’s no one out there who should have to get stuck with how spoiled and immature you are for the rest of their lives.”

Ah yes, Youngmin thought. Of course it was like this.

“Look who’s talking,” he snapped irritably. Of all the people to get stuck in a closet with, it just _had_ to be Minwoo. “Actually, just stop talking. I’m giving you a royal order to please shut up.”

Minwoo only smirked, reaching up and smoothing the collar of Youngmin’s shirt with no discernible motive. Aside from it being highly suspicious, the absolute confidence that Minwoo casually touched him with made Youngmin tense up reflexively.

“Don’t worry,” Minwoo said cheerfully. “Even when you do get married and become king, I’ll still never follow your orders.”

“Wow, what a relief.” Youngmin closed his eyes. “Look, can you seriously just be quiet until we can get out of here? For the love of god, just stop for like two seconds.”

“Why should I? I’ve got a captive audience.”

Something in the tone of Minwoo’s voice made Youngmin’s head snap towards him in surprise.

“What…?”

For a long, long moment, Minwoo only stared at Youngmin in the dim light of the closet with an oddly secretive look on his face. His hand ran inexplicably up Youngmin’s shirt again, before coming to rest on the back of Youngmin’s neck.

It was the last straw. Youngmin couldn’t take it anymore. He leaned in to kiss Minwoo—or Minwoo pulled him forward to kiss him? It happened at the same time, and all at once. Either way it wasn’t sweet or pretty, but immature and rough and frustrated, like they were kids again and beating each other up in the middle of the courtyard.

Except for they weren’t actually kids anymore, not on the outside anyway. In any case they were the future king and his future advisor, and all that considered Minwoo’s tongue really shouldn’t be in Youngmin’s mouth. But something, _something_ Youngmin could not (did not want to) describe made him give in when Minwoo grabbed his hair in one hand and dragged him down to kiss him again. He just _let_ Minwoo do that. He also let him bite down on Youngmin’s lower lip, then push Youngmin’s collar aside so he could press an open mouthed kiss to his neck.

“Don’t fucking stop,” Youngmin muttered into Minwoo’s mouth as he came back up to kiss him again, balling his fists in the back of Minwoo’s shirt. Minwoo responded by biting the skin between Youngmin’s neck and shoulder before pulling back abruptly with that familiar, infuriatingly smug look on his face.

“I just told you not to—“ Youngmin began, before he could recover his senses really, but Minwoo interrupted him.

“You should be thanking me,” he said, smirking widely. He was way too composed in comparison to Youngmin, who felt frazzled and confused to say the least.

“For WHAT?!” Youngmin nearly exploded, not caring at this point if an assassin overheard him. His head was spinning and his entire face and neck felt like they were on fire, not to mention his scalp still hurt from how hard Minwoo had yanked on his hair.

“If you tell your dad we did this, maybe he’ll reconsider his stance on your betrothal.” Minwoo ran his hand through his hair before tracing his finger over where he’d left a mark near Youngmin’s neck. “They might even make us stop hanging out so much. It’s a win-win situation.”

Youngmin groaned and shook his head. If there was a point where he would be angry, bewildered, or surprised, he had passed it a very long time ago.

“You’re going to hell, No Minwoo.”

“They probably won’t want me,” Minwoo said with a shrug, and for the first time in his entire life, Youngmin was inclined to fully agree with him.

\--

To the genuine surprise of virtually everyone, things returned to normal (going by a loose definition of normal, anyway) quickly enough.

Jeongmin had not in fact plotted their slow and painful deaths but returned to the storeroom with a crowbar after things had calmed down. The would-be assassins (the actual dangerous ones) had been arrested and the closet door was opened without much trouble.

If Jeongmin had any remarks about the bright red marks newly appeared on Youngmin’s neck, he had at least enough sense to not say them out loud, though Youngmin could have sworn he giggled when neither of them were looking.

A few days later the arrested men were given a swift execution to much public spectacle (though that didn’t discourage Jeongmin at all from showing his face around the castle every so often), so all that was left was writing rejection letters to all the betrothal offers that had flooded in prior to the twins’ 18th birthday. In the process Youngmin discovered that more than a few of them were actually addressed to Kwangmin, but Donghyun had never bothered to make the distinction.

“Typical,” he muttered to himself as he put the royal seal on the last rejection letter, tossing it into a box with all the others to be delivered the next day. “Maybe Kwangmin should get married instead.”

“You mean he should become King instead.”

Minwoo’s voice came seemingly out of nowhere, but in reality he was peering over Youngmin’s shoulder as he wrote the rejection letters. Youngmin turned around to give him the dirtiest glare he could muster.

“Really? You _really_ think Kwangmin would be better than me? At least say we’d both suck at it.”

“Yes, you both would. But Kwangmin’s easier to manipulate,” Minwoo said with a shrug and a devious half-smile.

“Go ahead and tell yourself that.” Youngmin rolled his eyes and shoved the parchment aside.

He was about to get up from his chair, except for Minwoo decided that was apparently a good time to sit himself down in Youngmin’s lap. And put his arms around Youngmin’s neck…

“Must we really?” Youngmin groaned, but didn’t necessarily stop him either.

Minwoo gave a pleased little sigh. “I take it back, you’re pretty easy to manipulate too.”

“This country is so screwed.” Youngmin’s sigh was not so pleased.

Yes, a couple of would-be assassins were dead. He’d just rejected like half the princesses in the known world and the throne might quite possibly be going to Kwangmin instead. And Minwoo had developed a habit of pulling him behind courtyard hedges or into more closets and doing whatever he liked, and Youngmin just had to accept it. He probably would have to for the rest of his extremely bizarre life.

But really, what else did anyone expect from a kingdom with a stupid name like ‘Boyfriend’?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Janus MV aesthetic, obvs. I haven't been into Boyfriend that long but they are super easy to write for so I might add onto this AU at some point in time.


End file.
